Court convicts Austrian woman after Syrian detention camp repatriation

A Vienna court on Wednesday convicted an Austrian woman brought back from a Syrian detention camp for having been part of the Islamic State group, but ordered her jail sentence to be suspended in the first such case in the country.

Since IS was ousted from its self-declared "caliphate" in 2019, the return of family members of fighters who were either captured or killed has been a thorny issue for European countries.

Evelyn T., 26, was brought back alongside her seven-year-old son from a Syrian detention camp in March and has been in detention since then, facing charges of being part of a terrorist group and a criminal organisation.

At her trial on Wednesday, she pleaded guilty to both charges, and the court handed her a suspended jail sentence of two years, court spokeswoman Christina Salzborn said.

"She fully confessed," Salzborn told AFP, adding that this was the "most important mitigating factor" besides her "very young" age when she committed the crime and the seven years she already spent in detention in Syria.

She will also have to undergo counselling and a de-radicalisation programme, the court ruled.

The prosecution can still appeal the verdict.

'Wake-up call'

Accused of having been a member of a terrorist group from 2015 to 2017, Evelyn T. was facing up to 10 years in prison on the charges.

She left Austria for Syria's then IS-controlled area in 2016 to join an Afghan she had met earlier in Vienna, "supporting him psychologically and taking care of the household", according to the charges.

Their son was born in 2017. The couple surrendered later that year, with Evelyn T. and her son ending up in a Kurdish-run detention camp for suspected jihadists.

Evelyn T. testified in court on Wednesday that her pregnancy had been like a "wake-up call", making her realise that she would not want her child to grow up "in such a radical environment", according to Austrian news agency APA.

Her son has been in the custody of social services since the two were repatriated.

They were brought to Austria with another woman, Maria G., and her two sons.

Maria G., now 28, left Austria in 2017 to join IS in Syria. She remains free since her return, while an investigation is ongoing.

Last year, a Vienna court ordered that she and her sons be repatriated, stressing that it was "in the children's greater interest".

Austria's foreign ministry had previously rejected her request to be repatriated, saying that only the children would be accepted.

The EU member previously repatriated several children.

Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands are among other countries that have repatriated relatives of jihadist fighters.

Many of the women returned have been charged with terrorism crimes and imprisoned.